Doctor Blind
by Lizburns
Summary: The root, the reason you're here, it's beyond broken pieces in need of mending. It feels like pieces missing.
1. Chapter 1

It's like waking up from a dream.

" _Agent Shaw?"_

Your endless gaze lifts from the hardwood floor, to the woman sitting slender legs crossed in the armchair five feet away. A professional by the look of it. The heels, the dress, the waves of her brown hair neatly wrapped in a bun. Her whiskey colored eyes find you in the short distance and it's as if everything you were wondering of moments ago is lost. Easily forgotten like a dream and replaced with something new, something you can actually touch but never quite hold onto.

Something real, like this blue leather sofa you're sitting upon. This room, this office, this woman... it's all real. It must be, you hope in the least. How you came to be here and above all, why you've come in the first place, a clouded mystery. The answers you chase through the fog in your mind quickly disappear in the vanishing point inches from your eyes.

What's real and what isn't, soon it's neither here nor there. Like her smile that isn't so much a smile. It's hidden cleverly behind the guise of her pursed lips and still, you feel as if it could spring free without a moment's notice. You think it's her eyes that truly give her away, the impish glimmer flashing across them when she tilts her head. Or maybe it's you. You and what your mind conjures to believe. A false allure captured by the soft lights hanging above.

Like you, she sits calmly in her chair, gathering silence and staring with those eyes to no end. And suddenly, you're not like her at all. You twist in your seat, unnerved by the relentlessness of her gaze. Until the only question on your mind is who will bore the hole first? Her eyes through the back of your skull or your nails scratching the arm of the sofa.

It's like losing a small battle, looking away, but relief is a victory of it's own. The pads of your fingers smooth over the shallow grazes in the leather as you begin to acknowledge your surroundings. Bookcases line the wall behind her, shelves stocked with limitless volumes of self help and understanding. By the door is a picture, a warm and fuzzily painted landscape meant to instill likewise thoughts. But you narrow your eyes at all of this.

The golden placard on the desk puts your suspicions to rest. _Dr. Caroline Turing,_ it reads and you hold back the offensive sound rumbling in the back of your throat. She's as much of a doctor as you are. Shrinks, therapists... those who use speech to bandage the mind and coping mechanisms to heal, they hardly deserve that title. Words aren't real medicine, at least not to someone like you. If she thinks for one second nodding her head and scribbling on a notepad will save you, she's mistaken.

But you notice she doesn't have a paper or a pen. Her hands rest pleasantly empty in her lap, long fingers woven lightly together instead of clasped. You bet they never tremble. You bet she's not even nervous being alone in a room with you. Other people are. Maybe they're wiser.

"Sameen," she says again. Soft, warm like the light of the room and so undemanding. By then your eyes had wandered to the window just beyond the desk, to the sky hiding behind the mass of tall buildings. Faint oranges and tinges of red peak over the tops of skyscrapers and you wonder if it's dusk, dawn, or if the world on the other side of the glass is on fire.

"Why don't we start small?" she offers, and your suspicions creep back up again.

 _We?_ As if you two are somehow in this together.

 _This..._ you're still not sure what this even is. It irks you for a moment that comes and goes as you squint to the rooftops in the distance. A nonsensical part of you searches for a sniper's nest in the canopies, for a telling flash of a scope aimed your way. You imagine a red dot in the center of your chest, a nonexistent bead on your heart, and consider a trigger pull from a mile away a better means to end this misery in the making.

 _Why don't we start small?_

It all begins that way doesn't it? _Small... insignificant... harmless._ But you've grown accustomed to the belief things never follow through with that initial simplicity. That little thing, it always builds and builds into so much more. Higher, grander, levels upon levels rising with importance and greater threat. As you stare out the looking glass, you wonder, how many floors above the ground are you now for even placating such a harmless question.

She says, "Tell me a little about yourself, Sameen," and suddenly you're not agent anymore. You're something you'd rather not be. A patient. You're _Patient Sameen_ now.

"Read my file."

You're thankful for that microsecond she blinks, shifts her eyes away towards the desk. That thick chaotic folder bowing the surface, it could only be your story. Heavy with only the things she needs to know. Any more and the legs would buckle and splinter.

"I have." She tucks back a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and that's when you really see her smile. Bashful but lively, showing all the cards of her sharp white teeth. "And to be honest, I'm kind of impressed."

And you shouldn't care whether or not she's impressed or downright appalled for the matter, but the flattery hits you all the same. There's a kind of fascination skirting the edges of her grin. If she has indeed read your file, then she knows all about what you do, and no morally sane person should ever look so proud. Like always, you resign yourself not to care, even as the undesirable spotlight beams your way.

"But what interests me more..." she begins, angling her head in a manner you find to be so cocky. "Isn't within the lines at all. I find subtext often reveals more than the context itself."

You wonder just what the hell she means by that, what about your life wasn't examined under the scrutiny of that personnel file. What about you could possibly be of interest to her? The time line of your years, it's all there. Printed records, factual and straight forward, but not incomplete. She looks to you, gazes a thousand passing days in silence like it will always bother you more. And that's when you realize what she really wants, something you're happily unable to give.

"You wanna talk about my feelings, don't you?" It's loaded and it isn't so much a question, it's the beginning of a cruel joke. Because you don't really have feelings. The punchline is which axis your personality disorder falls under. The rest, she can figure out on her own. That is her job, isn't it?

Years after putting the pieces together and you're still okay with admitting this bit of information she's probably going to turn around. You wonder what her reaction might be. If she's going to shake her head and say you're wrong, that you need search deeper within for something you know damn well isn't there, that it's impossible not to feel anything at all. But you do feel something. Anger. You can do anger just fine.

But she says none of those things.

"You're a sociopath. I know," she replies, never missing a beat. "You diagnosed yourself in medical school, didn't you?"

You almost clap your hands and applaud her, because that's not in your file at all. She's keen, you'll give her that. There's only a handful of reasons that would explain why someone like you was dismissed in the middle of a promising residency. Not a single person has ever cared to connect the dots except for one. The person who said you'd never be a doctor.

With your brows, you shrug. "Maybe I did. Is that a problem?" you ask, but it comes out too defensive. You have to be more careful. You have to control yourself. She's studying it all under a microscope; you and everything you say, it all gets trapped between two slivers of glass and magnified times ten.

The very thought is a sinking stone in your gut, an overwhelming sense of restriction and confinement.

But you're not trapped, you think. Next to that awful painting is a door and it's not so far away. Closed, probably locked, but you could easily get up and change that.

"Second opinions can be more... conclusive," she says. Her voice is somewhere else, farther away than anticipated. You drift towards it and find her standing at the bookcase with her back turned. Too trusting for her own good. "Then again, no one really knows you like you do, Sameen."

Absently, she searches, trailing her fingers across the books' spines. "The people who see us, they only witness a fragment of who we are. What's on the outside mostly, the superficial..." she says and plucks one from the shelf. A blue hardback, the title skewed by the palm of her hand. "We only show the parts we want to be seen."

She wanders back, flipping through the book without any real purpose. For some reason, she stops at the desk overlooking the sitting area. Something on one of the pages must have demanded her attention more.

"You could know someone..." she says, not to you, but to the open book, to the lines of unknown script. At first, you think she might read the passage aloud, but you're wrong. Whatever there was must have meant little to her, you think, as she looks up and half shrugs. "I mean, you could believe you know them," she adds, ripping the page right out of the book.

The loose leaf falls from her hand and into the waste basket by her feet. "No matter what, there will always be areas unknown," she says and tears off another.

"Blind spots..."

and another.

"Secrets..."

You watch in silence as she calmly destroys this book. A mixture of tension and curiosity grows with that ripping sound, as she drags page after page, letting them all drift into the garbage.

"We make certain parts of ourselves invisible to others," she says directly to you now, with another unlucky page in her hands. Oddly, she hasn't yet discarded it like the rest. If this is the pivotal moment, she better get on with it.

"We cover their eyes. Strategically manipulate their perspective... sometimes to an extent. We become good at it... too good." And with that, she crumples the paper into a tight little ball and throws it away. You see it through the wired mesh of the trash can, standing apart from the flat pages of blurred text. "When it comes time to reflect, we become unaware. That same veil we used to cover their eyes, we unknowingly use it on us. We blind ourselves."

She closes the book and you can see it now, the white lettering on the cover flashing just so in the light. Long enough for you to catch the title before it too is sent to waste. The _DSM IV,_ and you almost laugh.

"The bigger question is... What are you hiding from yourself?"

This is nonsense, you think.

"I already know who I am," you tell her. "I know what I'm capable of and what I'm not. I'm realistic."

You don't hold yourself to impossible standards. You don't lie to yourself. The truth is, you don't block anything out. The things you've seen, the things you've done... the good, the bad, the completely fucked up and unforgivable... you remember it all. You just don't care.

"I can see that you're an intelligent woman," she says, leaning back to the desk arms crossed. "Strong... resilient..." A silly smile flashes across her face. "Charming, even, when you want to be. Qualities which I greatly admire."

"You flatter me."

"Oh, your file does all the complementing," she replies. There, on the desk behind her, it still sits. Must have been a good read.

"But like you said, you're not interested in what's in my file," you quip, before it all becomes brass tax and bottom lines. "So what is it that you really want?"

The tables turn and now you're the one studying her. Silence hangs in the air and you wonder what she's thinking of, if she's searching for the right words for just the right lie. Most people tend to look off and away while they gather their dishonest thoughts.

But as she approaches the empty seat beside you and sits down, her eyes never shy away. She's a stranger, yet she looks to you in longing, with a glint of familiarity that flickers across the burnished rings of her irises.

"I'd like to know what you think you're incapable of," she whispers, as if she's being eavesdropped upon. Softly, like you are something fragile.

You're not.

"Why?" you challenge her. "So you can fix me?"

A shadow befalls her face, something akin to despair darkens in her eyes. "Is that what you really believe? That I want to fix you?" she asks, like the very notion is odd and offensive. Though you assumed it was her intention all along, you're not so sure anymore. The root, the reason why you're here, it feels beyond broken pieces in need of mending. It feels like pieces missing.

You lower your head and let your gaze find something else less provoking. "You wanna know what I'm thinking?" you ask but it ends on a distant note. On the leather seat, her hand lies inches from your own and the prospect fades. The mere closeness, unintentional you suppose, but too much. It's stifling in a way that makes your fingers curl into fists and retreat preemptively in case she dared to reach out. So you speak to the door across the room instead. "Leaving..." you say, "I'm thinking of leaving."

The exit is right there. The way out of this, whatever this is, you want no part in it. But when you send the command to your legs, they never move. The signal is jammed or lost. And though you remain frozen in place, your eyes drift and tunnel in towards the door until it's so close, it's as if you can almost touch it.

" _No one's forcing you to be here."_

You hear her speak, but her voice sounds far away. Disembodied almost, like an echo down a long hallway, barely anything by the time it reaches your ears. As you reach for the handle, you wonder if it's actually true, if you can indeed leave. But the invisible resistance slowing your movements says otherwise, that there is actually something forcing you to be here.

" _If you wish to leave..."_ she says, but when it's processed in your mind, you think you've heard something else entirely, a threat, _"If you think I'm going to let you..."_ A threat, but you can feel the insincerity, the fear, the tremble in a voice that seems to belong to a different person altogether.

The door knob begins to glow a faint red as your hand draws closer. Brighter and brighter, until it looks as though it's white hot. If you touched it, if you could, you wonder if it'd burn and sear your flesh. If that would scare you.

Your muscles shake and strain, fighting to cross the air denser than lead. It's the exhaustion that finally stops you in the end, futility riding on it's coattails and once again, you are still. Hope had collapsed and left you cold in the avalanche. Frozen and you think it might last forever.

And then you feel it, something soft and firm pressing flush with the flat of your back. The warmth isn't instant; it slowly blossoms and sinks in. You don't know why, but you lean into it and let it spread and thaw, all the way to the ends of your fingers caught in this standstill of reaching out.

You feel the concentrated bursts of energy buzzing down your forearm before you see it, the hand of someone else gliding across your skin. Long fingers with polished black nails, gentle despite their formidable appearance, snaking up to your wrist.

Lips, or what feels like lips, press to your ear and whisper to you. They say _please,_ they ask you to _stay._

It's all so tempting, this warmth. You close your eyes and almost lose yourself in it for a moment, but another temptation arises, strong in it's own way, the feeling like you don't belong here.

Those fingers smooth over the top of your hand, slip between your knuckles and lace themselves into you. Locking on but never pulling you away. You feel the testing drag of sharp nails scrape against your palm, the softness of those lips as they whisper again...

" _Why are you so afraid?"_


	2. Chapter 2

_Why are you so afraid?_

And before you can even begin to wonder what it means, those gentle fingers suddenly take a turn for the worst. Nails bite into your palm and sink like sharp teeth. The pain is a shock to your system, a relay switch flipped and your eyes snap wide open.

"Sameen..."

Again and again, you blink and come back into to focus. Everything is as it was. The room, the woman, and you, sitting on the couch like you never left in the first place. Like nothing ever happened. But something did happen, there's some time unaccounted for. When did she move back to her respective chair? Why is she staring at you like that, like she's been waiting?

"What?"

She senses something amiss, but doesn't dwell in it. "I asked you what you were afraid of."

The voice whispering in your ear immediately comes to mind. Those words, you think they were hers. The black nails clawing into your skin, you think they belonged to her too. It was real, you'd swear by the four red crescent shaped indents on the palm of your hand. You'd like to blame her for that, but when you notice the complete lack of polish on her part, you can't. Especially when you find the ominous red tinge stained underneath your own nails.

"Nothing," you tell her, even though you're still haunted by the ghost of her voice, by the potential of her imaginary touch. It's a lie like all of the those things are. What's real and much worse, the feeling like you're losing your mind.

"Nothing?" She looks to you skeptically. "Not even death?"

"We all die." At some point; from our own doing or by the hand of another, from illness or freak accident. A truck driver falling asleep at the wheel on a dark and snowy highway, it can happen so easily.

"It's the terms and conditions of life," you tell her. A contract you involuntarily sign upon birth. It doesn't bother you, though, you'll probably be on the clock when you die. And then it becomes, "Hazards of the job."

One of these days the mission will go belly up, there will be an unforgivable snafu and you'll finally go down. People such as yourself aren't afforded conventional deaths. You'll catch a bullet between the eyes before you catch pneumonia, succumb to gun shot wounds before you succumb to cancer. If an accident does take you, it won't be an accident at all, it'll just look like one.

" _Hazards of the job..._ " she reiterates. "And what exactly do you think your job is?"

"Terminating life contracts." Because you are _the hand of another._

Your job is ugly math. For every one person you eliminate, you save hundreds if not, thousands of lives. It's a ratio that might serve as a comfort to others in the same line of work, a comparative end to justify the means, to perhaps help them sleep at night.

But you never have that sort of trouble. Even if hours prior, you were snapping someone's neck or putting two in their chest, you sleep because you've done your job and you've done it well.

Which is, to make perfectly clear, "I kill people."

She doesn't bat a lash at your honesty. If anything, she seems immune to the harsh truth no one in their right mind would want to know. And why? You consider it might be the kind of thing she hears everyday from people like you, people who sit right here and divulge all the gory details of their line of work. The lifestyle they chose.

And isn't this the life she chose as well? The job she signed up for? To be alone in a room with someone who finds killing easier than conversation. You wonder if this apparent indifference of hers came about over time, having heard the same gruesome story told over and over again by a different pair of lips... or if it's the opposite. What if she's just not wired like everyone else? What if she's like you?

"Who?" she asks.

"Who what?"

"These people you kill, who are they?"

You don't remember most of their names. As soon as the mission was done, they were easily forgotten. If at all, you remember the time and place, the weapons used, what you had to eat afterwards. It isn't a defense mechanism, it's just how you are. Generalized, not local. Broad is the only answer you can give her.

"Terrorists... enemies of my country... potential threats," you tell her and there's a visible reaction, a spark of interest as a result.

" _Potential..._ " Out of the seven words you've just used, oddly, she only ruminates on the one. "The possibility of becoming something..." she remarks. Her voice is curiously uplifting, as if she's stumbled upon an anomaly in need of further examination. You think she's going to walk back over to that shelf and destroy a second book just to illustrate another moot point. A dictionary, you theorize.

You say, "Thanks. But could you use it in a sentence please?"

For the first time, you see her laugh. Though, it was merely a short burst of air through her upturned lips. Barely a laugh at all but it revolved within you, ticked the muscles of your face to follow in suite.

"I'd say you have potential for a career in stand up when you retire," she says, humoring your sarcasm. And then you really do laugh.

"That'll never happen," you scoff.

"Being a comedian or being retired?"

"Both."

Retirement doesn't cross your mind often, maybe a few times during idle moments. It's usually the stereotypical things government agents do when they reach pension heaven, because you have no clue what you want. Buy a house on the beach, grow an herb garden, live out the rest of their days in peace after having spent most of them in complete discord. But idle thoughts are all they are. Fleeting, entertaining until they're not.

"Why?" she presses on. "Are you afraid of change?"

 _This woman and her poor listening skills._ You've already told her, you're not afraid of anything. Integration into normal society should be covered under that as well.

 _Would you like to?_ No. _Could you?_ Yes, if it were necessary.

But when you consider such a transition from the clandestine shadows into the open light of day, you think it's no better. Funny, people assume whatever the sun makes visible must be good and true. For someone like you, accustomed to the dark and the real world hidden within, anything brighter would be blinding. You prefer the dark, you were meant for it. Because therein lies the actual truth. Awful and ugly, but at least you see it.

The truth is, "People like me have a short shelf life."

The truth is, your expiration date is just around the corner.

She wallows in a sappy grin. "Oh, I don't think there's anyone quite like you, Sameen."

For a split second, you can't tell if that was a compliment or a jab at your personality. If you reached far enough, she might have just flirted with you.

"I hope you're not about to compare me to a snowflake," you caution.

"Wouldn't dream of it," she assures you, but her melody portrays the exact opposite. "Then again... you _are_ very unique."

You shake your head. How wrong she is.

You're a soldier, a damn good one if you were to be so arrogant, but a soldier nonetheless. You march to the beat of the drum alongside other soldiers made of the same material, the same mold of flesh and bone.

But she's probably referring to the gray matter in your skull, the only thing that makes people feel like they're different. That, you might agree to. Then again, maybe not. Somewhere out there is another sociopath just like you. You wonder if the goverment's got them killing people too.

"I only follow orders," you say.

To be different, to be unique, is to be a leader. To create a path in which people align themselves with. You have the intelligence, but you lack the heart of a leader. There is no fire, no passion burning in your chest, only a muscle pumping a steady rhythm. The reality is, you're better at preserving.

There's a change in her mood, a shift in her comfortable seat. She leans far to one side, curls a fist to rest her chin upon. "And... who exactly gives you these orders?"

You don't respond right away. Although, you would like to throw out a question of your own. For instance, where is she hiding all of her tools? The knives, the ropes, the things that burn and shock. You wanna know if there's plumbing in this office for water boarding. If she had sprung for a battery operated drill. If she's sharpened all of her cutting implements recently.

Because the last time you were asked that question, you were being interrogated.

You're reluctant to call it torture because... well, they were amateurs. Hurt like hell, though. You remember feeling – the jumper cables for one, but damned regardless. It didn't matter how you answered the questions, you knew the end result would be the same no matter what. If they didn't kill you, your employers would if they thought for one second you talked. You've seen it happen before.

But she has your file. Only certain people in your agency have that kind of clearance. The higher ups, you think they're the ones who accessed it. Maybe they're the reason why you're here. To sit, to speak, to endure a different kind of torture.

"My employer," you say. "We call her Control."

Her ears prick, interest piqued all of a sudden and you think it's a bad sign. You feel like you've made a huge mistake, telling her so little. The omen is in her eyes widening with prospect.

"So you two are acquainted then? You've met?" She asks, and you shake your head. Telling her no, but mostly in disapproval of yourself.

"No one sees or hears Control."

Control is the invisible link so high up in the chain of command. Control doesn't exist in the same realm as you. Though you are what goes bump in the night, Control is the shroud of darkness, the shadow in which you operate. The one telling you who to bump.

"But you just referred to Control as a she?" she contends.

Did you? You can't recall.

"Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't. Who knows?" and you just shrug indifferently. The same way you did numerous times, long ago, during your first interrogation.

"I think you know well," she throws back, looking expectantly for you to satisfy her with a better answer.

"Just came to mind is all," you reply. Moving on to the next item on the docket – word association, hypnosis, hand puppets, whatever... you'd be perfectly fine with any of those trivial things.

" _It came to mind_ ," she mimics, "Just like _that?_ " and snaps her fingers together. The sharp sound is a tick in your right eye, a degree rise in temper. You might boil from this frivolous line of questioning.

She drums her fingers on the arm of the chair, surely to the rhythm of all the bright ideas prancing about in her mind. Doing what she seems to love the most, stare, waiting for you to indulge her. With what? You have no clue, but you think about reacting in such a way... the wrong way.

"Your assumption doesn't add up," she finally says, having ceased with the tapping before you did something about it.

"Maybe you suck at math."

She tilts her head, grinning almost manically, like she wasn't expecting anything less than a wise crack. Like she had wished all along you would dare cross the unknown line into her territory and ensnare yourself.

At that, she rises from the chair, wandering towards the middle ground of no mans land to lean upon the front of her desk.

"You operate within a system predominately controlled by males," she states, as if you didn't already know that crying shame of a fact. "And yet... you automatically assume your superior, Control, to be female." There's this knowing gleam in her eyes as she looks to you. "Now why is that?"

It was just a slip of the tongue, you think. A _her_ that could have easily been a _him_. If you had known better, you would have said _boss_ instead, and then this woman wouldn't be breathing down your neck about such an insignificant detail.

"What can I say? I may just be a feminist at heart," you reply and cross your arms, hoping she reads into body language as much as she does with semantics.

There seems to be a slight degree of irritation this poised woman allots herself. Subtly, she chews the inside of her grin and white knuckles the edge of the desk. It's there and then it's gone, ended with a ineffectual sigh and a, " _Very well,"_ rolling with her eyes and over her shoulder. On the desk is something better, something good, you think. Her lips naturally curl the way they're meant to.

It's your file.

She reaches back and flips it open. You watch her lick the tip of her finger before turning one page after another, humming while she searches.

"Who's Michael Cole?" she eventually asks, directly to the file versus to you.

"My partner," you say, confused as to what he has to do with any of this. For all you know, he's got an hour slot in her appointment book too.

"I'm sorry," she announces in an embarrassment so feigned and obvious, closing the entire file folder shut, she turns. "I meant, who was he to you?"

"We work together."

"For quite some time though," she says, leading and leading. "You two must have been close?"

As close as partners can be, you suppose. Though, after going through so many, you must admit, you're thankful Cole was the sidekick to actually stick. He's proven himself to be a reliable fixture in your work, and work is your entire life. Cole is the voice of reason in your head as you go forth into the darkness, the compass guiding you throughout the shadows. You protect each other. There is a mutual respect.

You say: "He's alright, I guess." and "We get along." and "I don't hate him."

But in your head you're thinking, if you were to ever call someone a friend, Cole might be that someone.

You were looking just over her shoulder, out the window again when she said something else...

" _Perhaps he was special to you."_

And that jarred you altogether, grabbed your focus by the collar and shook it violently.

You turn to her sharp, having recognized the pattern. " _Was?_ "

Her expression is something you might recognize from a flashcard with the word sympathy written in bold across the bottom. For a moment, before it evolves into another you're more than acquainted with. Malice.

"I think it's only appropriate, considering-"

"Considering what?" you snap at her. "Why do you keep referring to him like that?"

And then, you see it. This cold and callous look of hers hardening into stone. Devoid of any real emotion, expressionless, the kind of face you see in the mirror.

"Well, you can't exactly function in the present if you're dead," she says, but you dismiss her immediately.

You were just with Cole in Berlin, gassing the hideout of a few bomb makers. The one who wouldn't go down, you shot him with a suppressed MPK5. And after you dug the bullets out, you met Cole at the van and ate a shitty protein bar while he rambled on about...

 _Damn it_... what was he saying to you? The memory is there, the scene plays in your mind but without any sound. He was acting strange, he seemed troubled. There was worry in his eyes and you just waved it off, said something to the effect of him smiling weakly as he often does. He started the van without another word, and together you traveled to...

Here. You came here. The skyline behind the room is the same one you saw from the window of the airplane. Everything else, the line between point A and point B, it's fragmented. Even still...

"You're full of shit."

"I'm afraid I'm not," she says, shaking her head in that same solemn way the paramedic did in 1988. And you try your best to tune out all of the lies pouring from her mouth, but it's impossible. She speaks with calm abandon, never forcing herself to be heard because she already knows you can't help but listen.

" _I'm sorry, but the only place Michael Cole exists is in the past..."_

You feel your body start to vibrate, as if every atom you possess is stirring, heat and hatred gathering to the ends of your clenched fists.

" _The sooner you accept it, the sooner we can..."_

You zone and tunnel and take notice of her neck, of the muscles and tendons subtly moving underneath her pale skin, of the lump in her throat rising and falling with every lie that passes through her lips. Continuing to do so despite your wishes.

And then you remember, you could easily get up and change that.


	3. Chapter 3

The warmth of her skin, her pulse thumping wildly in your palms... This isn't just another illusion. Your hands are wrapped around her throat, squeezing the life from reality.

She's still alive, still conscious, and eerily calm. You've strangled enough people to know this isn't a normal reaction, no one is ever stoic while running out of oxygen. There should be fear, desperation, panic, but you only see peace in her eyes. She's not fighting back at all and it only makes you want to choke her more, the fact that she's fine with dying.

For the smallest moment though, you think she wants to live. When you feel the press of her hands against your waist, when you feel her fingers begin to curl and claw through your shirt, you think she's wised up and willing to tear you apart.

But you're wrong. So very wrong. God damn this woman, her intention was never to push you away, just to pull you in for a closer kill.

And you don't understand it. Her, this, what you're even doing anymore. You ease up, but make it very clear that it's not out of any sort of compassion. The only change of heart you had was deciding not to kill her. Yet.

She gasps for air and it's the most vulnerable side she's ever let slip, but the wall comes back up in an instant. It was her eyes that gave her away, you knew the smirk was coming long before she ever moved her lips.

You growl something treacherous and shove her back against the edge of desk, erasing the damn grin from her face. The pain, you hope it reminds her that you're not messing around. "I'll give you one last chance. Tell me where he really is."

"I've already told you. You just didn't want to-"

You shove her again, rougher this time. Her spine hits harder in the same spot and you finally get the reaction you wanted all along. She clenches her eyes and sucks in a sharp breath, and good. Maybe now she's starting to realize how much you're going to hurt her.

They flicker open and you see the whites of her eyes shaded in red, the pupils blown and glossed over, shimmering hypnotically in the light. There's traces of guilt as she reaches out, some qualm in the tip of her finger that points to your chest.

"Here," she says and taps the place over your heart thumping a mad rhythm. "Hit him here, the bullet. He bled out in less than a minute... right in front of you."

You shake your head, search her face for those tale tell signs that she's lying and find nothing. It confounds you.

"Strange... you think you'd remember the person who saved your life."

"No..." You don't remember it because it never happened. Cole is your partner, he's your friend. You would never let him do something so stupid like take a bullet for you. That's your job, you do the protecting.

"I suppose you don't remember this either," she says, glancing below to the space in between, to her other hand still pressed to your stomach. She releases and it feels like you've lost something vital. The warmth is soon replaced with another, eerie and superficial, blossoming from your side. As she brings her hand into view, you see it's glistening red, the fresh color of blood.

Your grip lessens and your eyes dart to the source. It's too late when you realize it's your blood. And though you can't see the contrast of it soaking through the black fabric, you feel the damp sticky heat clinging to your skin, you feel it steadily pouring out of you from a wound that shouldn't exist.

"Seen shots like that before," she says, rubbing the crimson slick between the pads of her fingers. "You're gut shot. You're done."

You think, _like hell,_ and remember where the door is, but your once steady legs buckle under the new and heavy you.

A blood stained hand hooks around the back of your neck and stops you from leaving this time.

"I can help you get it all back," she holds and promises, "Everything."

Only, you don't know what it is you've lost, besides the contents of your life pouring out at an alarming rate. The things she speaks of, the memories, it's like they never belonged to you. There is no recollection, you can't go back and reread the chapters if the pages are all blank. Her offer is empty, because you can't want something if you don't know what that something is.

"All you have to do is trust me," she says, like it should be the easiest thing in the world for you.

"Why should I?" you seethe when breaking apart is impossible. Though her grip is gentle, it's uncharacteristically strong for someone with her slender frame.

A smile seizes her lips. Anguished and endearing, she glosses a look like you're the stubborn but lovable fool in her eyes. "Don't be afraid."

You're not afraid, and you try to argue, but the pain strikes you fast like a bolt of lightening, splitting your gut. It renders you speechless, the agony and the realization that she's the reason for it. She reaches inside, into you through the inexplicable wound as if she's on a mission. Exploring mercilessly with her fingers, probing deeper and deeper, ripping you apart and there's nothing you can do.

"Ah," she chimes, having found what she's been searching for. She lets go and you stagger back the few steps before falling to your knees. "Pesky little thing."

This tiny, blood covered pellet thuds against the floor. A bullet, 45 calliber, still perfectly shaped from the second it had expelled from the cartridge and buried itself in your flesh. With a trembling hand, you grasp it and wipe some of the blood away to read the markings. Your vision fluctuates with the off beat of your heart, going in and out of focus. You think the scratches read _ISA_ one moment, and something else the next, the middle letter resembling a number instead.

 _Indigo 5 Alpha._ A bullet with your name on it. Possibly, but there's no mistaking where it comes from and who it belongs to.

"Now do you see?" she says, stalking closer the way a predator does, as you retreat like some kind of wounded animal.

Out the window, abaft of her, the world isn't calm, it's falling apart. Black smoke billows high in the air from the buildings below, lit up in a blaze. They burn and they collapse, crumpling to the ground with a boom, shaking the bedrock. The floor rumbles beneath your feet, the ceiling above chips and sprinkles dust.

"Stay," she says, and you just shake your head. You need to leave, you need to go far, far away. From this place, from her. Treat your wounds, heal, and come back with a vengeance.

The handle of the door glows brighter than before. You look to it, wonder and care less about the consequences of touching it.

" _Sameen..._ " she pleads and you turn back. She's not quite the same person anymore, she carries herself now with the weight of a thousands wounds on her shoulders. Anguish twists her face, her eyes flood with sadness and it captures you. This sight, her hands cupping your cheeks.

She cries and you don't understand, why a stranger would be crying for you. It rattles, you and this room steadily falling apart. She whispers, "Please..." as the ground shifts under your boots, as the floor starts to give away.

You look to the dividing crack in the space between where you both stand, wondering if there's more to what she's asking, but not for long. An explosion sounds close by, closer than anticipated, and the chaos outside finds you.

"For godssakes!" You shove her away just as the floor caves in. She falls to safety on the other side of this once small break, now massive crevice split across the length of the room. You stagger and stumble backwards on a floor as sturdy as thin ice, until your back hits a wall. Nowhere left to go, nothing left for this black hole to swallow except for you.

" _Shaw!_ " you hear her scream. You watch the bright red light of the door get smaller and smaller as you plummet into the darkness.


	4. Chapter 4

Something warm, wet, and incessant nags at your cheek, dredging you from the pit of unconsciousness. You groan and beg for more sleep, blindly grope for a snooze button nearby in hopes of delaying the beginning of this new day.

But the alarm whines and persists, reaches deep within your dream state, takes you by the collar and drags you out into the world. The kill switch on your slumber is a startling realization – soft fur at your fingertips instead of cold hard plastic, a machine with a pulse, powered by a beating heart instead of electricity... the alarm clock is alive.

You bolt upright, so sudden, it frightens the dog. As he scrambles out of the open ambulance doors, you can only watch in wordless confusion, the animal zig-zagging between tombstones before disappearing completely out of sight.

Odd, you think, and shake your head of all the fog. It's still unclear, though. This isn't the first time you've woken up in a strange place with no recollection of how you've gotten there, but this a little much. Zipped up in a body bag, thrown into a meat wagon abandoned in the middle of a cemetery. Overkill, when you really think about it.

The message reads death, loud and vibrant despite the overall gloom and lack of light. The only thing you have in common with the rest of the humanity, beginnings and endings are the same for everyone. Though, you'd prefer to hold off your last visit to the graveyard for as long as possible. You'd prefer the sender of said message find another way to illustrate whatever point they were trying to make.

You plant two feet on the hollowed ground, grateful in a sense, to be on the living side of the soil, but weary at the same time. Any moment, you expect the earth might weaken and crumble under your weight. You give it an affirming stomp and it doesn't collapse, the testing step doesn't sink in quicksand and that's good enough for now.

Today's sky is clouded in a high grey fog. Much like your head, light and clarity falls just short of finding this place. It's lost somewhere, diluted with the sun in the heavy overcast. What scarcely comes through does little to illuminate any understanding.

The shape of world is subtly skewed, you know this, but can't quite narrow down what's missing or what shouldn't be here. And before you can even begin to fathom what little you do know, the dog is back. He whines and prances circles around you, like he wants to play.

"Where did you come from, buddy?" you wonder aloud, lowering on one knee to scratch his head. He's a handsome dog, a breed commonly trained for defense. If that was ever his job, he's surely retired, resigned to attacking faces without the use of the teeth. You're practically knocked onto the ground by the slobbering barrage.

He's missed you, you think, though you have no idea why. There's a name tag on his collar, but reaching for it seems to be his cue to take off again. Your eyes follow his hurried path that ends at a cluster of gravestones atop the highest peak, between two figures standing still in the distance. Men, both in long black winter coats, both with their backs turned, unbothered by your presence or just completely unaware of it. The one with the hat reaches down to pet the dog's head, and the only part of his face you can make out are his glasses.

"I was starting to wonder if you'd ever wake up."

Quickly, you turn and see the woman leaning against the side of the ambulance, nonchalant, with a grin that says she's been here for some time, waiting. You almost don't recognize your doctor, as she's ditched the conservative uniform and taken to a look that seems to do her more justice. Black leather jacket, tight pants and heeled boots. Even her hair is different, flowing and free in the way she traverses through your mind. For a moment, you're relieved by the mere sight of her, by her familiar facing shining like the sun never will, not here at least. Like she's the only constant within this revolving nightmare, something grounding, something you can hold on to.

 _No,_ you think and let go of that idea, considering what happened the last time you laid hands on her. The whole world fell apart, you remember it more clearly now. The fire and smoke, tears and explosions, the great pit of hell had opened up and swallowed you in.

A near disappointed sigh puffs from her chest, as the only kind of greeting you exchange is a cold turn of the shoulder. You forget what little she means and focus on the three mysterious statues fixed like landmarks on the hill. Silent, save for the wind howling in your ears, rustling the branches of the only tree. It sweeps right through the thin material of your clothes, at a degree just shy of freezing, yet, it causes no shiver. You find it worrisome, the lack of feeling in a physical sense, the numbness non reliant on the weather.

Seconds or minutes later, you give her the breeze. "Friends of yours?" you ask, speaking over the impossible notions in your head blowing out of proportion.

Gravel crunches abaft. She dawdles closer to gaze alongside of you. "You could say that," she replies shortly, forthright of absolutely nothing.

You inquire further with a nod, "Who's he?" and something changes in her overall demeanor. You see it from the corners of your eyes, the spark of light in hers. Elevated, delighted perhaps, that you've taken even the faintest interest.

"Which he? The man with the glasses or his Australopithecine underling?"

"The dog."

She lets out a small laugh, a brief exhale that fogs and quickly dissipates in the air. "You're not at all curious as to who they are?" she asks, trapping you with a look, doe eyes and everything. "Not even a little curious about me?"

 _Yes,_ the stupid voice in your head says. Luckily, your faithful jaw remains stiff. She doesn't need to know what you think, what you make of her and all of this, whatever it may be. The truth is, you haven't landed on any solid theories yet. Maybe if you keep your mouth shut long enough, she'll fill in the silence with secrets. Though, it would mean being audience to her words, letting them lead you in a direction you might regret later. Trusting her.

"Are they the ones who set him- set _me_ up?" you ask, and the expression she fails to hide is enough. _No,_ she said with her eyes, and you answer her question in kind, wordless, with a turn of your heel in the opposite direction.

She refuses to register it though. Your beaten path to the ambulance is followed by her relentless nature.

"And where are you off to in such a hurry?" she nags in your wake.

You tell her you don't know, that you don't care, even though one of those is a lie. There's a path going out of the cemetery and into the horizon of a city, where all the answers are, you think. And there's a perfectly decent getaway vehicle that will take you to it, a mirage for all you know, but you're willing to find out. The people who did this to you, to Cole, they need to pay.

"But you should care, Sameen, where it is you're going-" she says, as you wrench open the door and climb in. "More importantly, how you get there."

You spare her one last glance, the whites of your eyes rolled far into the back of your skull. This woman: your doctor, your interrogator – the existential ache that won't go away.

"So long as it's far from you." And you slam the door shut. Her on the outside, you on the inside, the way it's supposed to be.

"That hurts my feelings," she says, from her new place – the passenger seat.

She was just smiling to you from the other side of the glass. _How?_ You could ask yourself, what's more likely? If the passage of time escaped you again, if it's so relative it's unreliable on your observance. It's a much better theory than the alternative: that the atoms composing this woman have the power to materialize at will.

Something tells you actual physics don't apply here, that to her, they're merely a suggestion. A feeling of unease turns your stomach then, at the thought of having no say; in her presence or anything at all. Like death, she's permanent, stuck by some unholy adhesive, yet so free and fluid. You could ask yourself, how the hell is this possible, but something tells you, you're better off not knowing.

The key fails every time you turn it, and you think it's her doing as well. Up to the grey sky, down to the truck that refuses to start, she controls everything. But you keep at it in the off chance you're wrong, paint yourself the perfect picture of insanity with the same back and forth motion, hoping the engine will crank with one more go around.

"You try so hard to escape," she says, observing each of your failed attempts. "Do you know, a person most often meets their own destiny on the road taken to avoid it?"

By then, you had dived underneath the steering wheel, begun crossing wires together in hopes of creating the right spark. Hands busy with the task, but your mind stays in tune with everything else. The unproductive cough of the engine, the increasingly desperate rhythm of your heart, the hum in her voice summing you up. She's what you wish to avoid, you think. But if you spoke that aloud, she'd just twist it around, immerse herself in that subtext she enjoys so much. If there were such a thing as destiny, it would never be a person, it would never be her.

This woman, you know nothing about her, and yet, she claims to know everything about you.

"Maybe you'll find what you're looking for there," she says, eyeing the destination miles away. The city, if she sees it too, then you haven't just imagined it. "And maybe you'll find the ones responsible for your partner's death. Get even."

"That's the plan."

"Running off half cocked isn't a plan. Not when there's so much more to the story you don't know," she says.

"I'm not in the mood for stories," you tell her, but it's useless, she pretends she doesn't hear.

"Why was Cole targeted in the first place? More importantly, why does it bother you so much?"

The wires never make another pass. Your hands still and you pause to think. What bothers you the most, what's frustrating, it's this fucking getaway vehicle that won't fulfill it's purpose. Most of all, it's her, this woman who doesn't have a clue what she's talking about.

"Ever consider, maybe I'm just sore about my boss trying to kill me?" you tell her, even though you're certain it reaches deeper. Past the desire for retribution, there's something else coiled in the pit of your chest. A twisted nerve with no ease in sight.

"I'm sure you are, Sameen." She flashes a knowing look, sheer in disbelief, eluding to a scheme of grander things with a flick of her lashes. If she is indeed the operator of this living nightmare, there is no such thing as mystery to her. Nothing is sacred, perhaps not even your own thoughts.

"Stay a little while longer? Hear me out first?" she asks and places a hand over your own, solidifying all of her good intentions in one move.

A glimpse of light breaks through the clouds for only a moment, if you blinked you'd have missed it. And though the world is grey now, it can't be forever, you think. The promise of her warmth tells you so, the dormant and near death nerves reawakened by her touch convince you otherwise.

She weaves her fingers in like fine threading, with eyes as gentle as her touch. Her black nails, sharp as the teeth behind her smile, they graze the skin of your palms and you remember it all over again. You've felt this before, once, when you were dreaming, when you wanted to leave everything behind. It was her all along, she who reached out and stopped you, who sank her teeth down to the bone.

She touches you and you wait for something spectacular, to know that same driving rush of free falling, for the world to collapse all around you, to feel fine with any of those things.

But nothing happens. Soon, you find there's no obliging her, that you can do neither stay nor listen. Another alarm is going off, the one inside of your head that chimes when things are turning bad, it urges for motion. And though retreat isn't an idea you entertain often, the necessity for it is too overwhelming to ignore. You give up with the engine you'll never start, with the mind of someone you'll never sway, everything.

And you run.


End file.
